Greenpeace: Licence suspension a ‘smokescreen’ to shut us down

Last week, the Home Ministry had temporarily suspended the NGO’s licence to receive money from overseas and served it with a show cause notice for alleged violations of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act.

Greenpeace India has alleged that the Centre’s move to suspend its licence to receive funds is a “smokescreen” to shut down its operations in the country completely. However, the charge has been dismissed by the Centre which said the action was taken against the NGO for its “mischief”.

The Home Ministry, last week, had temporarily suspended the NGO’s licence to receive money from overseas and served it with a showcause notice for alleged violations of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act. A statement issued by Greenpeace said, “… The MHA’s actions indicate that the alleged FCRA violations are a smokescreen for the government to shut down the NGO’s entire operations. Greenpeace India gets almost 70 per cent of its funds from Indians, and the MHA has ordered that these funds be frozen as well. There is no provision in the FCRA Act, 2010, which permits this.”

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Greenpeace India, executive director, Samit Aich said that the organisation will follow due process and respond to the MHA’s claims of FCRA violations and take the matter to court. “But the government has also blocked our domestic accounts and is now preventing Indians from supporting our work,” it claimed.

A senior Home Ministry official said it has frozen two bank accounts operated for receiving and utilisation of foreign contributions used by the NGO and five other accounts, which were “illegally” used for parking foreign contribution.